Senate goes 'nuclear,' ends Democrats' blockade of Trump court pick

By Lawrence Hurley and Andrew Chung WASHINGTON (Reuters) – Senate Republicans on Thursday crushed a Democratic blockade of President Donald Trump’s U.S. Supreme Court nominee in a fierce partisan brawl, approving a rule change dubbed the “nuclear option” to allow for conservative judge Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation by Friday. With ideological control of the country’s highest court at stake, the Republican-led Senate voted 52-48 along party lines to change its long-standing rules in order to prohibit a procedural tactic called a filibuster against Supreme Court nominees.